


long day

by crookedqueen



Series: howling ghosts, they reappear [bellamy finds her, every time] [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn, stubborn babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 12:17:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3810079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedqueen/pseuds/crookedqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>bellamy + clarke as co-dependent, twenty-something roommates (or, the one in which they’re dating already but don’t know it, and bellamy only realizes he has a heart when it breaks)</p>
            </blockquote>





	long day

**Author's Note:**

> this is part of my bellarke au series, which I also have graphics up for on tumblr.
> 
> [http://crooked-queen.tumblr.com/tagged/bellarke-au]

> “We make each other alive. Does it matter if it hurts?”  
>  — Ingmar Bergman, from a letter to Liv Ullmann  
> 

The apartment is starlight and dysfunction, all magic and mishap, filled to the brim with his stories and her illustrations, dusty stacks of books spilling onto the studio floor, where her mattress is overflowing with silky blue sheets and textbooks, and his is cluttered with black leather journals and forgotten inventory lists.

He’s got old marble busts that he found for two dollars at the costume store in the village, and she’s painted them over for him with gold and black. Their kitchen table is more of a shared bookshelf, a mecca for her scattered lip glosses and his only clean t-shirts because they always end up having dinner on the fire escape anyway, even in the winter with bundled up coats and boots on. 

Cold Chinese food is a favorite.

Clarke’s sitting out there now, blonde hair tied back into a messy bun, skin prickled with goose bumps as autumn crisps into winter. She sketches the building across from theirs over her chem notes, turns formulas into skyscrapers and scribblings into skies until she hears the familiar turn of a key at the door and her hand stills.

Clarke ducks her head to peer at her roommate. After much nagging on her end, Bellamy finally got a haircut, and it’s cropped closer to his head now, his eyes are tired, his white long sleeve is a little ink-stained, and his tattoo, a black lined globe faded into his olive skin, bits of countries crumpled and spreading like a reincarnated Pangaea across his shoulder blades, is poking out from behind it.

That’s Bellamy Blake for you, has the world on his back.

Clarke gives him a small smile that he returns with a nod, and he tosses something wrapped in foil at her. She narrows her eyes at the slightly soggy sandwich. Dinner.

“Hey,” she sighs, climbing back into the apartment.

“Hey.”

“Long day?”

Bellamy lifts a shoulder, a little sheepish. “Is it ever not one?” He sets his messenger bag down on the ground, tilts his head back against their one painted wall with closed eyes.

Clarke puts her hands in her pockets as she steps towards him, sways on the balls of her feet.

Bellamy opens one eye, glances at her and half-smiles.

“Need something, princess?”

Clarke rolls her eyes, looks away. “No.”

Bellamy smiles again. In the next second, he’s got his fingers spread across her thighs as he hoists her up against the wall. Clarke presses her hips to his, and he lets out a ragged breath, digs his face into the curve of her neck.

Clarke stares out at their window, into the night, as her zipper comes down. There aren’t any stars here, not in New York City.

Bellamy takes her hand and presses it to the wall, fingers intertwined.

But she still sees them.

-

When Clarke showed up at his doorstep answering his ad on Craigslist two years ago, Bellamy practically slammed the door in her face.

Clarke frowned, straightened up and knocked again.

And Bellamy, with his Hanes tee and loose sweatpants riding dangerously down his hips had said to her, “You’re not interested.”

Clarke shook her head, confused. “I’m _sorry_?”

“Me too,” Bellamy said, gave her a once-over, chuckled at the little barrette pinning back her bangs, the unnervingly clean sneakers on her feet. “This place isn’t for you, princess.”

“You don’t even _know_ me.”

“No?” Bellamy mused. “So you didn’t grow up with a sweet nanny, designer clothes, and three TVs in your place? Go to some private school on the Upper East Side, get drunk with your rich friends, stress over straight A’s?”

Clarke blinked, but this only spurred Bellamy on.

“Didn’t go to parties in pretty dresses but come home feeling empty inside because you knew that there had to be more to life than that? That somehow _you_ were different? So you ran away from your mom and dad because they didn’t quite love you enough, because you wanted to rough it on your own and prove that you could make it?”

Bellamy glanced down at her purse.

“You don’t have a shiny emergency Visa sitting in your wallet right now?”

Silence.

Bellamy raised a brow.

“Fine.” Clarke swallowed. She held his gaze. “You know, you’re pretty judgmental for someone who needs a roommate because he can’t come up with rent money.” She jabs him in the center of his chest with her finger. “And you’re right. I _am_ in the wrong place. Because I’d never want to live with someone who’s mean for sport. Maybe I come from money, maybe I _did_ get tired, and maybe I do want to make it on my own, but I haven’t done anything wrong. Not to you.”

Bellamy’s smile dropped then, his jaw twitched.

“And you were wrong about one thing. I couldn’t run from my dad.” Clarke pressed her lips together. “He’s dead.”

-

That day had been one of many firsts for Bellamy.

First time he’d ever run after a girl, his bare feet jumping on the concrete as Clarke tried to hail a taxi, arms wrapped around himself as his featured twisted from cocky to pleading.

“Hey, princess.”

She’d ignored him.

“Hey, listen.”

It was the first time he’d apologized to a girl other than his sister, cranky and disgruntled, sure, but earnest as he walked over to lower her arm and show her back inside.

Upstairs, he’d watched as Clarke took the place in. Mostly bare and undecorated, he’d put some quotes and newspaper clippings up on the walls, words of myths that hung over his books, leather bound and dusty. A stale glass of water on the table, his bed - just a wooden platform and a simple mattress - made on the floor.

“Can I see the other room?”

Bellamy chuckled under his breath then, jerked his head for her to follow. He led her to the other side of the same room, pointed to the bare piece of wall opposite his own, and said, “You’re looking at it.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes. “Oh.”

“I thought _Clarke_ was a guy’s name,” Bellamy explained.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Obviously not, since it’s _my_ name.”

Bellamy chuckled again, crossed his arms as he followed her around the studio. “Look, princess, it’s got a stove, a toilet, a working radiator, and I promise I won’t kill you in your sleep. At this price on the Lower East Side, it’s practically a palace.”

But Clarke wasn’t listening to him. She had her eyes set on a book near his bed. 

“I work at a bookstore.”

Clarke glanced back at him. “I’m pre-med.”

Bellamy narrowed his eyes. “How old are you exactly?”

Clarke hesitated. “Twenty-one.”

Bellamy’s eyes practically rolled back into his head. “Jesus.”

“Look, I won’t have any problem paying my rent, okay? I’m working front desk at an art gallery uptown when I’m not in school. And that emergency Visa you were making fun of earlier might just save us both.” 

Bellamy parted his lips to reply, but Clarke was kneeling down on the floor, fingers ghosting over the hardcover she’d found.

“You don’t know it,” Bellamy remarked, a flush creeping up the back of his neck. When she ignored him and turned the book over, he released an impatient breath. “ _The Well at the World’s End_ , first edition. It’s about a prince who runs away from home, goes in search of his fortune, even though he’s forbidden to. He goes on this venture into the woods, and magic becomes him. He’s this sort of brave heart, a wayward soul, lost, and somehow he knows exactly what he’s doing.”

He trailed off then, glanced down. 

There was a beat of silence.

“It’s my favorite,” Bellamy and Clarke remarked at the same time.

-

She moved in on a Sunday.

-

Years later, Clarke Griffin’s sort of embedded herself into his life.

Whether Bellamy likes it or not.

He closes his eyes and moves her to the floor, cold fire rippling in his belly, sweat pooling at his lower back. It’s a mistake when he looks at her, eyes wide and blue, set right on his, and he gets this feeling like…without this, the world would break. They pant along to the same rhythm, and he slides his hand down from her breast to her ass.

“Bella – ” a moan “ – my.” She keeps trying to say his name, not in blind desire (he knows better; that’s not what they are) but because she’s asking for something. Her brows are furrowed. He knows that she’s doing the same thing she always does: calculating, assessing.

He fucks her harder, partially in annoyance.

Clarke shuts her eyes, moans, “I can’t…”

Get there. She can’t get there, Bellamy realizes. He slows down, much to her dismay, then forgets himself and grinds forward, one hand holding her hair back as their foreheads touch. 

His lips part against hers.

“C’mon, Clarke,” Bellamy whispers roughly. He lifts her leg higher, thrusts deeper. She fists the sheets, almost hostile, and comes with a broken moan, her tone lifting to an almost embarrassing pitch. 

A moment later, Bellamy’s hips still when he comes, and he groans against her cheek.

When he rolls over, they both stare up at the ceiling.

“I’m up for a promotion,” Bellamy finally says to fill the silence.

Clarke’s tired eyes widen, and she turns to look at him. “Bellamy, that’s great. What’s the promotion?”

“Superior bookseller?” Bellamy rolls his eyes. “I’m the only employee at a used bookstore, princess. It’s not exactly a high honor.”

Clarke nudges his side. “Still.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy breathes. He pushes up from the blanket they threw onto the floor, glances back at her as he pulls his shirt on. Clarke’s hair is loose, her pale chest flushed pink. He’s sure she’s going over her to do list in her head, crossing him off it. There’s an errant strand of hair near her ear.

His hand twitches. _They don’t do things like that_.

Meanwhile, Clarke rolls over onto her stomach, inspects the forgotten sandwich by the window, crinkles her nose at the bread’s questionable color.

“You sure this is edible?”

“They were out of prime steak,” Bellamy retorts. At the look on her face, he amends, “Ray’s was getting rid of it. Thought you might be hungry.”

Clarke’s lips lift into a little smile, and she nods. “Okay.”

He joins her on the fire escape with a book and a pillow for their backs, doesn’t react when she drapes her legs over his knees.

And that’s that.

-

“So,” Octavia says as they sit down with their slices of pizza. It’s their favorite little hole in the wall on 2nd Ave. Not just a pizza shop, but a _themed_ one. Today, it’s a spy adventure. The walls are pasted with tacky silver foil, servers dart around with water guns, spray each other every so often, and the patrons are given codenames when they walk in, like John _Dough_.

“So?” Clarke echoes, dropping into the seat opposite her friend.

“So, I’m thinking of setting Bellamy up with a girl from my class,” Octavia tries, referring to the kickboxing lessons she teaches full time at a gym on the West Side. When Raven sits down beside her, they exchange a look. 

The two girls met as neighbors, right around the time Clarke moved in with Bellamy. It had been a particularly hot day and the air conditioner had reached its final days in the flat Octavia shared with her boyfriend Lincoln. Alone and dying of heat, Octavia had called upon some guy Wick who lived down the hall to fix it.

When Raven came home to find the two sweating on the floor near the window, no catfights ensued.

Raven just fixed the damn thing herself.

“Setting Bellamy up?” Raven repeats now, staring at Clarke. “That’s a great idea, O.”

“Hm,” Clarke murmurs, responding to a text on her phone. “Bellamy’s going to kill you, but that might be nice. Which girl?”

Raven slams her hands down on the table, frightening Clarke and half the restaurant. “ _Damn_ it.” She reaches into her pocket and surfaces with a ten-dollar bill, hands it over to Octavia.

Clarke blinks. “Um…?”

“Bet Raven ten bucks that you’d pretend to be nonchalant about it.”

“About setting Bellamy up?” Clarke shakes her head, incredulous. “That’s because I _am_ nonchalant about it.”

Octavia smirks.

“I _am_.” Clarke glares at the two of them.

“Don’t get all embarrassed about it, Griffin,” Octavia says. “How do you think I feel, knowing you’re banging my brother?” 

“Well, some people call before they come over,” Clarke scolds. “It’s not…like that. I guess, he and I just look out for each other. We’re roommates. We’re fond of each other.”

“No,” Raven remarks. “Fond is what you feel for a distant relative who you see once a year around the holidays. And unless you’re giving Aunt Myrna a little something extra after Thanksgiving dinner, that’s not what you and Bellamy are.”

Octavia gags, Clarke blushes.

She remembers the first time something happened between the two of them. It had been a good three months since Clarke had settled into the apartment, and she was studying for an exam the next morning, sighing and huffing as she shuffled through flashcards and cut her fingers on loose pieces of paper under the dim lamp by her mattress. 

From the other side of the room, Bellamy dug his face into his pillow and grumbled, “Have something against normal sleeping hours?”

Clarke sighed. “We can’t all be Mister Bright and Early.” She shook her head, shoved her notes aside. “Sorry, I’ll just go to that diner down the block. It’s open late.”

Bellamy groaned, sat up in bed. From where Clarke was sitting, the city light filtered into the room, cast slanted shadows across the boy’s sleepy form, decorating his skin in a mural of moonlight and building tops, a design that danced all the way up to his face. Clarke bit her lip at the hair hanging in front his dark eyes.

“At this time of night?” Bellamy rolled his eyes. “Over my dead body, princess.” He jerked his head over at the pile of thick books balanced on her knees, trying in earnest to skip his gaze over her thin nightie. “Come on.”

An hour later, he and Clarke were sitting out on the fire escape – the beginning of their little tradition – bickering over correct answers and technicalities. 

“You know, I don’t _need_ to help you, Clarke.”

“I didn’t _ask_ you to, Bellamy.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

As Clarke pushed up from the metal bars and made her way back into the apartment, Bellamy sighed and caught her thigh in one hand to stop her, an action that landed her right into his lap, straddling his thighs.

Even the city seemed to hold its breath.

“Fine,” Bellamy repeated, gaze flickering down to her lips.

“Fine,” Clarke whispered back, inched forward.

Bellamy bowed her up against his chest, let out a long exhale when he kissed her, like this was something he’d been waiting for a long time. He cradled her head in his hand, touched her deftly, gently, despite his calloused fingers, raising goose bumps like the cold couldn’t.

Since then, it had become a routine. 

They don’t talk about it, the same way they don’t talk about the afternoon Clarke had come home after failing her first exam _ever_. The way Bellamy had cocked his head, left the apartment and returned a half hour later with a pizza box and a cautious face, sat through an incredibly bad romance flick and watched her the entire time.

The way they don’t talk about how Bellamy whispers in his sleep sometimes, quiet murmurings about his mother’s eyes, the stories she used to tell him and Octavia, hands sliding across the sheets, grasping for something that wasn’t there, facial expression contorting into one of a little boy’s, something he never allows himself to be.

The way Clarke drags him onto her mattress – the softer one – and traces the world on his back until he falls back asleep, their individual demons dancing in the night around them.

They’re used to it. They’re used to each other.

Which is exactly what Clarke tells Octavia and Raven for the billionth time.

“Fine,” Octavia says, “Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that you guys don’t have feelings for each other – “

“Bullshit,” Raven coughs. Clarke cuts her a look.

“If that’s true, what will you do when one of you guys really does find love?” Octavia asks. “Work out a schedule? Mess around with Bellamy on Tuesdays and Thursdays? I’m sure your future husband won’t have a problem with that.”

“That’s not…” Clarke shakes her head, stares down at the black tabletop. “I’m going into med school; Bellamy’s writing his book. Neither of us have time to date. This is just convenient, if anything. It’s just something that…happens.” 

_Over and over again_.

Octavia gives her a look of disbelief.

Clarke looks away, thinks of Sunday mornings and the scar that runs along Bellamy’s stomach.

“Believe what you want, Octavia. Bellamy and I just aren’t romantic people.”

Clarke frowns to herself. Licks her lips.

So that’s what a lie tastes like.

- 

Bellamy’s got his head between her thighs, and Clarke is flying.

At least, she’s trying to.

They’d been cleaning because, despite his badass demeanor, Bellamy’s a glutton for tidiness, and Clarke is…Clarke. But she’d forgotten to wear pants while wiping off the high shelf, and Bellamy had watched her a long time before casting the broom aside, grabbing her hip.

Now, his fingers dig into her skin, pressing red into her flesh, and he flicks his tongue against her clit, taking her higher and higher, and Clarke runs her fingers through the hair near the nape of his neck, can almost see stars, but –

_“What will you do when one of you guys finds love?”_

Clarke frowns.

Bellamy glances up and notices, copying her expression, working her harder with his tongue.

_“I’m thinking of setting Bellamy up…”_

Clarke lets out a frustrated breath, drops her hands from Bellamy’s hair. The stars collapse around her, coat her skin in prickling dust.

Bellamy’s cheeks heat up against her thighs as his tongue stills, almost like he’s embarrassed, almost like he actually believes he’s _bad_ at this for a minute. His hair sticks up at the side of his head as he looks up at her. His jaw is clenched, but his eyes are soft and slightly hurt.

It’s adorable and terrible, and Clarke hates it.

“Why don’t you date?” she suddenly sputters.

Bellamy arches a brow in disbelief, pushes up from the mattress and wipes the wetness from his bottom lip. An aftershock of pleasure runs up Clarke’s spine, and she closes her eyes.

“Was it that bad this time?” Bellamy smirks playfully, but his tone doesn’t match it. 

Clarke doesn’t say anything.

He leans on one elbow to look at her, concerned.

“You breaking up with me, princess?” He feigns a wound on his chest, covers it with one hand, and it makes things ten times worse.

“I mean,” Clarke continues, “there must have been a pretty girl who walked into the shop sometime.”

Bellamy frowns again.

Thinks of the times Clarke visits him at work.

“Where are you going with this, Clarke?”

Clarke sits up, a safe distance away from Bellamy, and drags the panties up her legs.

“I just…hasn’t anyone caught your eye? Haven’t you ever wanted something more than…” Clarke trails off, and he regards her with a careful expression. And before she can stop herself, the aching shield of defense spreads its way across her skin, hardens her up, pulls the emotion from her eyes. “I think we should date – “

Bellamy’s heart stutters in his chest.

“ – other people.” 

Clarke nods to herself after saying it, like she’s the one who needs convincing. 

“Yeah,” Bellamy exhales under his breath. He feels the fallen stars too, burning and brightening, scalding his skin. And then there’s Clarke, a faraway supernova, bursting right before his eyes.

“Yeah,” he repeats to her.

A cosmic failure.

-

Clarke finally agrees to have coffee with this kid in her organic chemistry lab, and it goes like this:

Finn has a spark in his eyes and is built like a soldier, and Clarke realizes she doesn’t recognize it because it’s a _warrior_ who works himself under and over and inside of her every night, holds her chin sometimes, battles his demons in her.

Finn’s just noble guy, too smooth for his own good. Clarke reminds herself more than once that this isn’t a bad thing.

Finn steals a sip of her cappuccino, and Clarke lets out a surprised little laugh. 

“No, really, it’s an amazing book. You have to read it,” Clarke insists. “It’s about this prince who runs from home, but it’s filled with magical realism, all these allegories for self-discovery and…” Clarke shrugs a shoulder when she sees Finn smiling her. “It’s just one of those stories that becomes a part of your own. You know?”

Finn wipes some foam from her lip with his thumb. “I know that I want to kiss you.”

And despite herself, Clarke lets him. He tastes like iced coffee and _almost_. It’s nice and skilled and insistent.

 _And not Bellamy, and not Bellamy, and not Bellamy_.

-

The next night, Clarke frowns at the pair of heels she borrowed from Octavia, an inch higher than she normally wears. 

Bellamy watches as she roots around their room, dodges around their stall of a bathroom, pokes in and out of their tiny shared closet – all her clothes, really – and changes into a black shift dress. He leans against the tiny counter of their makeshift little kitchen, a piece of marble next to the stovetop opposite the far wall. As she shoves the fabric down her body, the same lacy black panties she wore the other day catch his eye.

“Gallery party?”

“No.”

“Going out with Raven?”

Clarke murmurs something unintelligible, puts some small studded earrings on. It sounds a lot like another no.

“Then – “

“I have a date, Bellamy,” Clarke finally says, turning to look at him. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

It isn’t. Bellamy looks at her for a moment, hair tied back in a messy up-do, purposefully wild, a bit of dark makeup around her eyes, some color on her lips. Her dress is awfully short, skims the skin of her upper thighs, and suddenly Clarke looks like something of myths, of legends. She’s a quiet Athena, an owl’s wisdom, a warrior’s heart, and something quakes in his chest. He thinks of Ares, a war god.

Tormented and battle torn.

Submitted to Athena alone.

Behind her, Bellamy goes stony, but she can’t see.

“A date,” he says.

“A date,” Clarke echoes.

“You going to let me make fun of you for this?”

“Nope.”

“Okay.” He gives her a nod, picks up the necklace that matches her earrings from the floor and tosses it at her. “Carry on, princess.”

-

_“How do you unmemorize someone? Not forget, just peel the words away from where they’ve left them, whispering on your skin at night, wash your pillow of the number of times they’ve shared it with you? How do you go back to the before?”_

It’s a random line in the pathetically blank document he has open on his laptop, his sad excuse for a work in progress, the one Clarke always talks to people about, like she’s sort of proud of him, even though there’s nothing there.

_Undo._

-

Clarke starts to date Finn, and it’s got a stellar effect on Bellamy’s mood.

Octavia deems him unbearable, intolerable. He’s snapping at the littlest things now, practically scaring away the customers at the bookstore and would’ve gotten himself fired if the shop owner, a kind old man named Bobby, hadn’t taken a liking to Clarke over the years and known exactly what was going on.

“Face it, big brother,” Octavia says to him one day as he curses over a spilled cup of coffee. She gives him a little sympathetic peck on the cheek. “You’ve got it bad for Clarke Griffin. And until you finally admit that to yourself, I’m steering clear of the beast.”

Bellamy’s frown seems to be a permanent new fixture on his face.

He doesn’t exactly deny it.

Perhaps it’s the fact that Clarke is hardly ever home anymore. Or that when she is, the mornings and nights are filled with accidental touches and murmured apologies. He’ll step behind her while she’s making eggs, plant a sleepy kiss to the back of her neck, bow her back to his front, grinding slightly. Until -

“Bellamy…”

She hates the way she says his name now.

Like it’s the intro to a lecture.

Like she’s not moaning it.

“Yeah, whatever,” Bellamy murmurs and backs away, defensive.

“It’s just – “

“I know.” Bellamy turns his back to her, tries the toaster, but it’s not working…again. _Shitty fucking apartment._ “You were home late last night.”

Clarke scoops her eggs onto a clean plate. “I was in Brooklyn.”

“Pretty boy take you out for craft beer?”

Clarke says nothing, just cuts him a look, jerks her elbow back to hit his side.

Bellamy grumbles, “Don’t make it a habit.”

Clarke lets out an incredulous breath. “What’s your problem, Bellamy?”

“My problem is _you_ , princess. Walking around the fucking city at all hours of the night like you’re invincible.”

Clarke sits down on the table cross-legged with her eggs. “Why do you care?”

Bellamy gets this unreadable expression on his face before that jerky boy who answered the door two years ago makes a comeback. 

“You get mugged and killed, and all the paperwork is on me, princess. I have to hear your mother’s mouth.” He ducks into the bathroom, slams the door shut. “And I’ll be short of half the rent.”

He can practically feel Clarke giving him the finger through the door.

Not that he’s the only culprit. 

There are other times, when Clarke will come home exhausted after a shift at the gallery, a long night class. She’ll plop down onto his bed and curl into him before they both freeze, remembering.

“Clarke,” he whispers, almost pained, eyes still closed. No calling her princess, no pretending.

“Yeah,” Clarke swallows. “I didn’t – sorry.”

And then there’s the time when he heads to the café, the one that marks the middle point between Hunter College and her gallery, the one she loves to study at on Thursday nights. He strolls in and buys a black coffee and her favorite, whatever’s the sweetest combination they have on the menu that day. Clarke has a sweet tooth like you can’t believe and –

And she’s sitting there with Finn.

Bellamy backtracks, Clarke’s sketchbook tucked under his left arm. He stands there for a moment, coffee cups in either one of his hands. And then he backs away, brow furrowed as Clarke smiles and Finn tucks that ever-messy strand of hair away from her face.

Right.

-

The worst night is the one on which Bellamy comes home a little...inebriated. He’d joined Wick at the bar and though he’s not wasted, he feels the familiar pull of gravity dragging his feet up the stairs to their apartment. He’s practically walking with his eyes closed. He runs into their landlady on the second floor in her rollers and big slippers.

She gives him a dirty look. Bellamy makes it a point to smile at her.

The apartment is cloaked in darkness when he gets upstairs. Clarke has dozed off in a sea of her notes, lips parted in an easy slumber. And Bellamy regards her for a minute, places a hand on the wall to steady himself. The look on his face is indecipherable, like every time he sees her, he sees something new.

He kneels to the floor in front of her, kisses a line up from her bare ankle to her knee.

She stirs, whispers, “Bellamy?”

“Hey,” he murmurs, his voice deep and rough. Maybe it stirs something in her, but Clarke ignores it.

Clarke blinks awake, more alert now.

“Long day,” Bellamy breathes, their familiar song and dance. Clarke lets out a breath, but he continues, “But I guess that doesn’t matter anymore. Because the princess has found herself a prince.” He puts a slur in his words so that this won’t be so embarrassing in the morning. “Why don’t you ever invite him over? Not good enough to bring home and meet the roomie?”

He’s pretending, Clarke knows it, knows him. Bellamy doesn’t get drunk, not usually, but when he does, he’s fully aware of everything he’s saying, remarkably in control of himself. 

Clarke sits up now, narrows her eyes. “Stop it, Bellamy. Don’t be a jerk. That’s not you.”

They stare at each other for a minute.

Bellamy’s the one to finally get up and roll onto his bed. In the dark, they’re aware of each other’s consciousness, listening to every shift against the bed sheets, every light sigh.

Bellamy clears his throat. “Remember when you first moved in? Your mom came to check the place out, and I thought she was going to pass out.”

“She warned me to be careful, living with a boy.”

Bellamy grins. “Lot of good that did.”

He can’t see Clarke, but Bellamy knows she’s smiling.

“But you stood up to her because that’s who you are,” Bellamy says, marveling to himself. The room spins a little, fades and flickers. “But I could tell that it bothered you, what she thought of you. These things bother you, and you hold it in. You feel so intensely, Clarke. And you hide it for the sake of everyone else. You scare the hell out of me.”

Clarke closes her eyes, tries in vain to shut him out. “Sounds familiar.”

“But you’re a good person.” Bellamy sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. “And I haven’t been…to you. For a while, you and Octavia have been all I’ve had. But I guess I’m realizing that it’s not the same. That I’m not all there is…for you.”

“What do you want from me, Bellamy?” Clarke finally snaps. Her voice sounds all choked up, but she swallows it down. “You want me to be upset? Okay, I’m upset. You want me to lie and tell you that you’re bad guy? I won’t do that.”

“Clarke -

“You and I? We shouldn’t work because we _don’t_. There’s no part of me that would have ever wanted to be your friend two years ago.” Clarke sighs. “But that changed. You and I both have done things, things we’re not proud of. But we get through it. Just like we’re getting through tuition fees and shitty jobs and subway rides and this horrible fucking apartment that somehow seems like home because I get to share it with you.”

Bellamy sits up, listening.

“I look to my right, and there you are. I wake up, and there you are. There’s no other way to describe it, Bellamy. You’re my partner, and I need you. So you can sit there and pity yourself and be awful, but I’m going to forgive you every time. I don’t know about Finn or about how to do any of this, really, but I know that he isn’t you. I know that it isn’t this. That’s just the way it is.”

Clarke’s breathing heavily. “Is _that_ what you wanted to hear?”

For the first time in a long time, Bellamy has nothing to say.

Clarke shakes her head, shoves a few things into her purse, pulls some jeans on, and makes her way to the door.

Bellamy groans, rolls off the mattress. “Where are you going?”

“Who knows?” Clarke says, exasperated. “I’m invincible, right?”

-

Christmas comes, and the smell of holly makes Bellamy want to puke.

“Cheer up, big brother,” Octavia sighs as she, Raven, Lincoln, and Wick file into the tiny space. In an effort to prove that their little studio is just as superior as the rest of their places, they’re hosting Christmas dinner this year. Something that was agreed upon before Clarke was hardly speaking to him, clearly.

Bellamy rolls his eyes up to the top of the doorframe, eyes the sparkling mistletoe taped to the chipping tape. He lets a sharp breath out of his nose, stretches his arms over his head, and “accidentally” knocks it to the ground.

_Fa la fucking la._

It doesn’t help that Clarke has turned their place into a holiday oasis, enrapturing Bellamy more than she already has in the past two years he’s spent memorizing her greatness. With two dollar store poster board and some paint, she’s hung a paper Christmas tree in the wall, drawn the thing with the most brilliant colors he’s ever seen, forest greens and light blues painted in layers behind the bright yellows and scarlets of its fake bulbs. Paper snowflakes fall from it now, hang over the windowsill and their beds, which are made with green and red sheets. 

Clarke’s sprayed the place with the scent of pine, gentle under the smell of the dinner Bellamy’s got cooking. They may have stolen the chairs from their building’s laundromat downstairs (temporarily), but it was Clarke who draped them in twinkling lights, found glittery paper napkins and made a jovial snowman to sit center stage at their little table.

He never had this as a kid. Clarke knows that.

“You did good here,” Bellamy had managed to say when he found Clarke drowning in tulle and construction paper at the end of his shift.

Clarke glanced at him, some glitter on her cheek. “Thanks.”

“Should put this much effort into paying your rent on time,” Bellamy grumbled to cover up the emotion in his voice.

A smile started on her lips. “Shut up.”

Now, Bellamy’s focused on the kitchen area, sweating over roast pork and the sugar cookies Clarke made him watch for her while she went to help Finn find the place. (It had taken everything Bellamy had inside not to provide commentary on that.)

“Be nice, Bellamy,” Clarke had warned.

Yeah, yeah.

-

“You know Clarke’s bisexual? Because if you’re just with her to fetishize her sexual orientation…”

Finn raises a brow, swallowing down a bitter sip of beer. He’s out with Bellamy, sitting on the hallway steps next to their walk-up while everyone sips wine inside and sets up for dinner. Bellamy’s gaze is all accusatory, his eyes narrowed as Finn throws his hands up in surrender. 

He wants to hate the kid but can’t, not really. Because at the end of the day, they’re just two poor losers who started out cocky until they began following Clarke Griffin around and never looked back.

“I didn’t know that, actually. I - ”

Bellamy frowns, growls, “Well know that you know, is it a problem?”

Finn chuckles, raises the beer at him. “No man. What’s up yours? Lighten up. It’s Christmas.”

Bellamy’s hand curls into a fist. 

“Okay, testosterone-fest,” Raven suddenly calls from the doorway. She throws an amused smirk at Bellamy, then turns to Finn. “C’mon pretty boy. Clarke’s asking for you.” When Finn follows her inside, she nudges his arm. “Hey look, don’t mind Bellamy. That’s just how he is, you know? Protective by nature.”

“No, I get it,” Finn smiles. “It’s nice, that he looks after Clarke like that. Like a big brother.”

Raven frowns, tries to answer him, but he’s looking around the apartment, at the hodgepodge of old furniture and Christmas when he continues, “Hey, where’s Clarke’s room?”

Raven pastes on a smile, shows Finn to his seat, all while murmuring, “Jesus, fuck.”

Down the hall, some carolers sing. 

-

Despite Lincoln’s kind compliments to the chefs, Octavia’s witty one-liners, and Wick and Raven’s trade-off of sexual innuendos, the friends sit soaked in silence. Clarke and Bellamy take turns glancing at each other when the other’s not looking, both questioning, both waiting.

Finn is slightly oblivious.

Clarke glares at the freckles on Bellamy’s cheeks from behind her tea cup, blanches when she realizes that Bellamy poured the darkest blend they own into it, her least favorite. It’s bitter, just like Bellamy.

“Honey?” she snaps at him, waving the cup in his face.

Bellamy smirks at his plate, nods at Finn. “Pretty sure she’s talking to you.”

Clarke exhales, rolls her eyes. “Stop.”

“What? Can’t take a joke?”

“You’re being an asshole. You know that, Bellamy?”

Octavia and Raven exchange a look. Finn glances between the feuding pair in slow realization.

Bellamy opens his mouth for a retort, but they’re interrupted by the smell of smoke wafting across their studio, an angry mist cloaking over their homey dinner. Clarke tears her eyes away from Bellamy, sniffs then runs to the stove, pries it open and coughs when it practically explodes gray in her face.

Bellamy curses under his breath, goes over to help her, but Clarke shoves him away.

“I asked you for _one_ thing, Bellamy.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Sorry I can’t always be at your beck and call, princess.”

“A toast,” Finn interrupts sheepishly in an attempt to ease the tension. He stands there smiling darkly, a little ridiculous in the smoky apartment, with a fork in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. “To Christmas, and all of you fine people having dinner with me tonight. And to Clarke, graduating from college this semester, getting into med school, and her big move to Pennsylvania next year.”

Bellamy stops what he’s doing, braces himself against the wall.

Clarke drops the burnt tray in her hands, spoiled cookies clattering like sugary rocks onto the floor.

-

She’s staring out at the city in the freezing chill of December, following the cargo ships slugging across the icy East River in the distance, when someone joins her on the fire escape.

When Finn sits down beside her, Clarke slaps the tear rolling down her cheek so quickly that she seems maniacal. Not that she cares. She already knows what he must think of her. 

“You and Bellamy, huh?”

Clarke bows her head. Down the block, their street’s bodega screams cheap candy and cigarettes.

She can only nod.

“I’m sorry, Finn.”

Finn strokes his own jaw, pushes up from the metal. “Yeah, Clarke. Me too.”

-

The friends are gone, leaving a clutter of untorn gift wrap and cranberry-soaked bones in their wake. 

Clarke’s sitting on the closed toilet seat, has got the shower running so loud that she can’t hear Bellamy on the other side of the door, rifling through their few cabinets, messing with the stove in a hurry. Maybe she hears him call out her name a half hour, an hour later. But she ignores it, rakes her fingers through her hair, and thinks of running.

Always running.

When she finally surfaces from the cloud of steam, eyes puffy and shoulders tense, she finds Bellamy sleeping against the wall beside the door, an book open on his chest, a pile of cold cookies in a plate on his lap. Clarke stares at him for a while, and he startles awake, a little disoriented before realizing it’s her.

He sits up as she slides down the wall to sit beside him. 

She opens her mouth, but he beats her to it.

“You _know_ why, Clarke,” is all Bellamy says.

It’s then that she shoves the plate off his lap in one furious movement, falls onto his legs, all sloppy and awkward and just right. She licks his bottom lip and can taste the cookies from when he tried them, can taste years of tiptoeing around what they are to each other.

She rakes her nails down his back, and they make each other say dirty things, ferocious and delicious words about how wet she is and how no one can do it like him. She forgets to blush, he forgets to tread carefully.

The hardwood shakes, and an angry tear slips down Bellamy’s face when he comes.

Ares and Athena, breaking the world beneath their backs.

-

When Clarke leaves, she packs the same bags she showed up with.

Bellamy forgets to make fun of her for that, what with something shattering in his chest.

-

_Eight Months Later_

One walk through Clarke’s new campus and even the trees, crisping orange for autumn, are judging Bellamy as he walks by. He’s never seen so much pink and pearl white in his life, and if he doesn’t find her place soon, he might drown in a sea of polo fabric and Starbucks cups.

“He’s kinda hot,” some girl mutters to her friend when he passes by a set of marble arches gating away a lush courtyard.

Bellamy smiles at the ground despite himself.

When he finds the apartment Clarke’s been renting out with her new roommate, a private building with a doorman and all, he waits a minute before knocking. Under his feet, the hallway carpet is so soft that he might as well be barefoot. 

He frowns and thinks of the nights he and Clarke spent a little drunk on their own dirty doorstep, kissing and crawling their way in celebration after her finals weeks.

He clears his throat, knocks.

The Clarke standing before him is not the Clarke who had perpetual dark circles under her eyes when they lived together, the one who’d throw on his hoodie and her pretty little sneakers to sketch with him uptown in Central Park, who would play her awful music a million decibels too loudly, then yell at him for playing his indie rock while she studied an hour later, the one who let him read to her in the dark, who’d curse with him while sharing a lukewarm shower because it was late in the day and the hot water was running out.

This Clarke is all stony eyes and a chokehold of diamonds around her pretty neck.

“Bellamy – “

He smiles at her, bows his head. “Hey, princess.” _Come home_.

He doesn’t know what she has to say, but he doesn’t want to hear it yet, not until he’s done. So he inhales and begins.

“What if I finished my book? What if it’s based on a story we both know by heart? What if the prince is city born this time, with a kingdom made of cement and a crown of thorns? What if his mother the queen died too young and his father was some piece of shit who might as well have? He’s this cocky guy, likes sarcasm and making fun this stubborn princess, moves into this shithole with her, and keeps waiting for something to happen, keeps waiting for absolution, keeps wondering if what he left behind was bad enough to leave it.”

His gaze on her is so steady that it hurts.

“And he’s waiting, and he’s waiting because no one ever taught him what a fortune was, he doesn’t realize that the adventure is already there because he’s living it. He’s battling subway stops and swinging across building tops and hiding away in paperback fortresses, and falling in love with this girl. The problem is that he doesn’t recognize the fairytale because his mother stopped reading them to him.”

A heartbeat later, Clarke blinks, ever serious. “How does it end?”

Bellamy smirks. “You tell me, princess. Hits shelves in a few months.”

Clarke inhales. “ _No_.”

He coughs in surprise when she throws her arms around him, raises a hand and puts it in her hair.

“I hear the commute’s two and a half hours from UPenn down to the city,” Bellamy says against her cheek. “You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

Clarke closes her eyes and smiles. “I don’t know. Might not be the place for me.”

He deserves that one.

-

When Friday creeps into Saturday, Bellamy’s drinking a beer on their fire escape and a lock turns at the door.

When she comes inside, she sets her new brown knapsack down, ties her hair back, and strokes a finger over the new addition to his shelves, one she’s read and read again. 

_Rebel King_ , it’s called. By Bellamy Blake.

“Long day?” he murmurs when Clarke joins him out there, the sky descending on the city before them.

Clarke thinks of grueling years, of sex on the floor, of bad love songs and the taste of alcohol and waiting too long, of battling him, and of battling herself. War stories that the walls of this apartment know too well.

“Yeah,” Clarke says, slumping against him in relief. “Long day.”


End file.
